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What did you do on your summer vacation? Major broadband network operators spent the season making plans to deploy superfast 5G wireless broadband. 5G is the communications technology that offers broadband speeds of up to a hundred times faster than 4G, lower “latency” (basically, faster response time), and other benefits that will power the Internet…
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WASHINGTON, August 8, 2018 – Experts in broadband data analysis on Tuesday criticized internet service providers for overstating coverage in federal broadband data collection efforts, and for resisting cooperation that could increase network security. At an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of Measurement Lab, or “M-Lab,” held at the New America Foundation, experts spoke about…
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WASHINGTON, August 2, 2018 - Google Fiber and Verizon split with AT&T and Comcast over the so-called “One-Touch Make-Ready” policy, with the former claiming that the need for faster deployment speeds make the policy essential, and the other side claiming it oversteps existing rules and jurisdiction for pole attachment regulation. Later on Thursday, the Federal…
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PITTSBURGH, July 30, 2018 - Many broadband experts speaking at the Next Century Cities regional summit here said last week that city jurisdiction should take precedence over federal rules in ensuring impactful broadband deployment. The conference highlighted some of these local voices, eager for broadband deployment even as they criticize recent Federal Communications Commission moves…
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WASHINGTON, February 28, 2018 – Advocates of net neutrality are pushing for congressional action to overturn a December action by the Federal Communications Commission to repeal such rules. But they will have an uphill battle if they expect President Trump to sign off on gutting an action by his appointee to lead the FCC. In…
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The success of the internet demonstrates that we now depend on network operators to assure that services like telephony work. The carriers are pushing back on neutrality because their business model is threatened by a level playing field. We should be encouraging innovative internet-native business models rather than working to preserve an industry threatened by…
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WASHINGTON, December 7, 2017 — Tom Wheeler, the Federal Communications Commission chairman under President Obama, wasn’t coy in expressing his feelings about his replacement’s “abomination” of a plan to gut the open internet rules he put in place two-and-a-half years ago. “This is the culmination of a grand plan which started back in 2013,” Wheeler…
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BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: A great little piece from the Inverse lays out how the "Chatham House" rules may protect Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai from being quoted for what he says at Verizon Communications, his former employer, nine days before net neutrality rules are set to be axed. (UPDATE 12/6: It turns out that Pai…
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WASHINGTON, November 21, 2017 – In a move that could further infuriate an already-energized coalition of technology industry power players, consumer advocates, and progressive interest groups, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday unveiled plans to undo the net neutrality rules that put in place in some form or another since the early years…
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NEW YORK, November 14, 2017 — Verizon Wireless is joining forces with its’ largest competitor — AT&T — and smart cities infrastructure builder Tillman, in order to build hundreds of new cellular towers, the company announced on Monday in a press release. Construction of these new towers — which will begin in the first quarter…
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WASHINGTON, July 28, 2017 – At a Wednesday confirmation hearing for Peter Davidson to be general counsel of the Department of Commerce and others, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said the country needed data-driven leadership. Chairman John Thune, R-South Dakota, introduced Davidson and the other nominees. Davidson was senior vice president of…
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WASHINGTON, July 26, 2017 – The official topic of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing was reauthorization of the Federal Communications Commission, but the big focus was on net neutrality. “The Commission’s decision in 2015 to reclassify the internet as a public utility was a power grab laced with the irony of suffocating the…
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WASHINGTON, June 18, 2017 - Internet freedom has declined worldwide for six consecutive years, said Stuart Brotman, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, citing Freedom House at a panel Wednesday. The panel about global internet freedom under the Trump administration took place at Brookings. Besides moderator Brotman, the…
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BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: A new report from the Haas Institute raises the question that's been lurking behind the important-to-significant fiber rollouts over the past decade by Verizon, Google and AT&T: Are these providers cherry-picking their neighborhoods? This report drills deeply into AT&T's deployment. || Digital Divide in California, by the Haas Institute: Californians need high-speed…
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WASHINGTON, October 19, 2015 - The Federal Communications Commission on Friday announced that it had launched an investigation into the broadband pricing plans of local exchange carriers AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier and Verizon Communications for so-called "special access services" of business data.
A coalition of competitive carriers and non-profit organizations dubbed Competify has been urging the inquiry, and praised Friday's order by the agency's Wireline Communications Bureau."The incumbents use inherently anticompetitive lock-up plans – which only an entity with immense market power could impose – to charge businesses and anchor institutions excessive access rates that harm competition, restrain the deployment of competitive facilities, and impede the transition to next-generation services," according to a statement released by the group.
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NEW YORK, October 13, 2015 - The battle between Verizon Communications and the Communications Workers of America escalated on Tuesday, as the union announced a new television advertisement slamming the broadband provider for failing to build-out its high-speed fiber-optic internet service here.
The advertisements come just ahead of a New York City Council hearing on Wednesday that will include the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, customers that say they have been unable to get FiOS, and from Verizon officials.
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Editor's Note: The broadband world has lost three visionary giants over the past several months: Scott DeGarmo, Charles Benton and Don Samuelson. Each of these men had a significant impact on the world of advancing high-speed communications. Personally, each of them also had a significant impact on my professional career in broadband. I have had countless interactions with each of them over the course of many years.SALT LAKE CITY, August 31, 2015 - I learned of the passing of Broadband Communities CEO Scott DeGarmo from pancreatic cancer two weeks ago this morning. One of my colleagues on the board of the non-profit Rural Telecommunications Congress had shared the news. His death came just one month prior to his company's next conference, "Fiber for the New Economy" in Lexington, Kentucky.I immediately sent off my condolences -- now joined with dozens of others on the Broadband Communities web site -- to those in his company whom I have known and with whom I have interacted on my levels.
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ASPEN, August 17, 2015 - The Technology Policy Institute's Aspen 2015 Forum opened here on Sunday night with a focus on the increasing prominence that cybersecurity threats play in core national defense matters.
"A greater and greater percentage of the president's daily briefings is taken up with cybersecurity threats," said Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, speaking at the mountain resort here in a question-and-answer session with Alan Raul, a partner and global coordinator for privacy and data security with the law firm of Sidley Austin.Michael Daniel, White House Cybersecurity Czar, and Alan Raul, at Aspen.
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December 18, 2014 - While net neutrality captured Washington policy headlines, the most significant communications development in 2014 was the emergence of new and more viable approaches to building community and municipal Gigabit Networks.
A confluence of factors in the worlds of broadband, energy, transportation, manufacturing and civic engagement have underscored the need for next-generation internet networks. Evidence of this gathering momentum behind global Gigabit Cities include the high-profile emergence of public-private financing models and a growing network of high-bandwidth computing applications.
This year's fight over net neutrality is not unrelated to the push for Gigabit Networks. The Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet proceeding is a battle over scarcity: The prioritization of traffic on lower-capacity networks. From the D.C. Circuit Court's decision striking down FCC rules in January to President Obama's decision to directly intervene in the new FCC proceeding, it's been an all-consuming public battle.
But viewed from the vantage point of the future, the far more significant development will be the emergence of opportunities outside of Washington for high-capacity broadband networks. It’s a world in which cities and municipalities are playing the leadership role.
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WASHINGTON, November 19, 2014 – Although some believe that the digital divide is not a problem, there are Americans who have not adopted broadband due to the cost or lack of access. Some states have played an active role in getting their citizens online, and one such organization is the California Emerging Technology Fund, which…
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WASHINGTON, November 13, 2014 – Net neutrality has been the hottest topic in tech policy for months. Politicians on the left say their opponents stand foursquare against the tenets of a free and open internet. Politicians on the right that their adversaries are trying to apply outmoded and outdated legislation to cripple the innovative essence…
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November 4, 2014 – Nearly a year-and-a-half ago, Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam claimed in an editorial in The New York Times, "The United States built its lead because companies invested nearly $1.2 trillion, over 17 years, to deploy next-generation broadband networks." That number is meaningless: over a period of 17 years, much of the…
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WASHINGTON, October 7, 2014 – Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and wireless industry pioneer Marty Cooper took to the opinion page of the San Jose Mercury News to offer their thoughts on the future of wireless spectrum. As they emphasized the importance and centrality of mobile devices and Internet access, the two highlighted the limited…
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WASHINGTON, September 29, 2014 – Whether or not mobile Internet providers will be subject to the same net neutrality rules as wired broadband providers has become an increasingly prominent factor in the current debate over net neutrality rules. The proposal laid out by the Federal Communications Commission in May would only be applicable to wired…
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WASHINGTON, September 24, 2014 –Verizon Communications and AT&T are urging the Federal Communications Commission to include the use of data caps in the agency’s definition of broadband. Including usage-based pricing in its definition is important because companies that use universal service funds to build networks in rural areas must accept the standards laid out in…
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WASHINGTON, September 21, 2014 - At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, critics of net neutrality warned against the negative impacts of internet regulation while supporters of net neutrality said that practices by major communications demonstrated the need for such protections. Both former Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell and economist Jeffrey Eisenach said that…
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WASHINGTON, September 12, 2014 - In what would have seemed highly unlikely just a few months ago, growing support for public utility regulation is emerging. Tech companies, politicians, internet service providers, and component makers have started to outline their views regarding their policy approach to the issue of net neutrality. In order to understand the…
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WASHINGTON, September 5, 2014 - Google Fiber has been perhaps the primary driver of the current push toward high-speed internet in the United States, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a speech here yesterday on the future of broadband competition. In an otherwise general speech that failed to mention major communications companies like…
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WASHINGTON, July 30, 2014 - Internet service providers are adopting more usage-based pricing models and consumers may be using the internet less as a result, according to preliminary results from a Government Accountability Office study. Consumers may also be neglecting benefits of lower-cost models due to confusion over data caps, the report found. "In the…
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WASHINGTON, July 29, 2014 – An alliance designed to serve the wireless broadband needs of rural America has partnered with Sprint to provide fourth-generation LTE service to members of the NTCA that are calling themselves the Rural Broadband Alliance, according to details unveiled in a webinar on Thursday, July 24. In a webinar hosted by…
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WASHINGTON, July 21, 2014 - More than one million comments were received by the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality before the Friday night deadline, Reuters reported. The second round of comments will give the public until Sept. 10 to respond. AT&T pitched to the FCC its proposal that "fast lanes" could be regulatorily barred…
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WASHINGTON, June 18, 2014 - Most internet service providers are delivering upload and download broadband speeds as advertised, according to the Federal Communications Commission, although there is room for improvement in consistency of speed. In its "Measuring Broadband America" report released Thursday, the FCC said that, on average, ISPs are delivering 101 percent of advertised…
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WASHINGTON, June 16, 2014 - In the midst of Netflix's quarrels with Verizon Communications, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement Friday that the commission will investigate slowdowns in traffic to ascertain whether there's harm to consumers. “To be clear, what we are doing right now is collecting information, not regulating. We…
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WASHINGTON, June 10, 2014 - The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable continues to stir up controversy. The Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include internet giants Google and Yahoo, sent a letter to Sen. Al Franken asking regulators to stop the acquisition as it would give the merged entity "increased incentive…
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WASHINGTON, June 9, 2014 – The head of the leading trade association for the electronics industry on Wednesday weighed in against classifying broadband as a utility and subjecting it to extensive government regulation. Instead, regulators should follow a “minimal harm first” principle, said Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, in a speech at…
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WASHINGTON, June 2, 2014 - In an interview on C-Span's "The Communicators," Verizon's senior vice president of Craig Silliman said that the tech giant will likely not pursue a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission over net neutrality rules – provided that the agency doesn’t attempt to reclassify broadband as a public utility under Title…
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WASHINGTON, May 27, 2014 - The House Energy and Commerce Committee recently released a white paper that seeks public comment on competition in the communications and technology sectors, as well as what role the FCC should have in regulating the sectors. The paper pointed to a rapidly evolving digital landscape in the 21st Century and…
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